Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Unit 4: Initial Ideas

Here are some peliminary ideas for the story including all three of my given words:

1. an Elderly man (the sculptor) has made a tiny Art gallery inside a matchbox just big enough for insects and travels around showing it off. (not a complete idea and to be honest not a very good one. I didn't feel as if it was working or if there was a story to be told with it but I chucked it in just the same.)

2. a young sculptor filled with ambition and dreams of stardom presents one of his best works to the local Art Gallery in the hope that they will display it in the up and coming Exhibition. the young man then has his dreams smashed as the curators verbally destroy him, his work and his naive ambition to become a famous sculptor. He is then laughed out of the Gallery and into the street where he is swallowed up by the heavy rain as he runs off into the darkness. Later that night he breaks into the Art Gallery and attempts to burn it down using a Box of Matches in order to exact his revenge. But, the oily canvases of all the paintings catch too quickly and he is trapped inside the building.

3. an empty Gallery at night. the are a few lights on for security purposes but it is still fairly gloomy, there are paintings hanging on the walls but the main feature of the exhibit is a magnificent statue which takes pride of place in the centre of the room. tucked just out of sight behind a small white-marble pedestal in the corner of the room lies a small matchbox. a tiny man pushes the box open and looks forlornly at the huge statue in the middle of the room. after a while he gets out of the match box and starts pacing his usual route around the room looking for various assorted bits of nick-nacks and bric-a-brac droppeed by the Gallery partrons during the day. as he approaches the bin on the other side of the room he glances up at the statue. he shighs and keeps walking but he stopps when his foot bumps against a large decorative hairpin that lies on the floor infront of him. he bends down to pick it up but when he does he finds that it is broken leaving one end sharp to a point. he stares at the point for a few seconds and glances up at the statue again. he looks back over his shoulder to his matchbox house. and a huge smile appears on his face. he sprints off down the room and dives into his match box appearing seconds later with a matchstick in one hand and the hairpin in his other. Turning to the marble pedestal he proceeds to hit the head of the match against the back end of the hairpin (effectively using it as a hammer and chisel). when the sun comes up in the morning a security guard enters the room to find a small copy of the main statue in the corner of the room where the pedestal had been.

- Alternative Story: the Statue in the centre of the room has no name next to the Artist and also no head on its shoulders. At the end The security guard finds that the marble pedestal had been carved into the missing head leading the audience to believe that the small matchbox dwelling man is the original sculptor

- Alternative story: the statue in the centre of the room depicts a naked man standing up and at the end the security guard finds out that someone has carved a small decorative fig leaf out of the marble pedestal in order to hide the statues "you-know-what".

Hey Freddie I really like your third idea, its really original and leaves behind the expected of you using the matchbox to burn something.

In regards to the original idea or the second alternative, the original is a lot clearer and with that you could easily start putting a script draft together. The alternative is a great idea but it isn't clear how the decorative fig leaf out of the pedestal comes about unlike the miniture statue of the original. I do however like this idea, it's like Steven says quirky and funny that a sculptor feels the need to hide a statue's modesty so if you want to continue exploring this idea into a script it might help if you clarified how events unfold a bit more.

Personally I would explore both because this will keep both doors open and allow you to see which becomes more effective and works better :)

cool thanks Emma, I did read this when you posted it and I did respond but it doesn't seem to have logged it so here it is again. I think you're right about the alternative idea being a bit confusing. i think in order for it to work I'd have to show the statues nudity and that's not really something I want to take into pre-viz. i'll give it a rethink and try and post something as soon as possible.

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